Briggs, Private International Law in English Courts (OUP, 2014)

This book offers a restatement of European and English Private International Law as it applies in the English courts. The author has set out to create a contemporary approach to private international law which is distinguished from the traditional approach of describing private international law through its common law foundations. The author places European Regulations, and related statutory material, at the front and centre of the book, reorganising private international law according to the principles that the law is increasingly European and decreasingly insular. As such the work constitutes an approach to the area which is essential for litigators dealing with questions of private international law influenced by forty years of European legislation. The in-depth discussion will also be valuable to academics specialising in private international law. Written by an academic who is also a practising barrister, this book seeks to highlight the techniques and principles which provide the hidden infrastructure and support mechanisms for the private international law rules of European law, as well as the remaining standing of the common law rules of private international law.

The book will be useful to practising lawyers tackling issues of private international law as it now is, after forty years of European legislation, but the in-depth discussion will also be valuable to academic lawyers specialising in private international law. Written by an academic who is also a practising barrister, this book seeks to highlight the techniques and principles which provide the hidden infrastructure and support mechanism for the private international law rules of European law, as well as (albeit second) for the common law rules of private international law.

If I may offer my own blurb: this is a book that everyone working in private international law (and especially in the UK) will need access to, given both the recognition that the conflict of laws is now primarily a conflict made better or worse by European law, and the importance of Prof Briggs’ work to all who study, write or practise in this field. It is available on the OUP website for £195.